


A Desperate Soul

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dark One is ever present, even when Rumpelstiltskin thinks it under control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Desperate Soul

**Author's Note:**

> I believe this was a prompt from Valerieparker, asking for the Dark One poking Rumpel into doing naughty things.
> 
> And I hereby celebrate quarter of a million words of OUaT fanfic with this story :D

Once upon a time, there was a dark and terrible creature that held all the power to twist the fabric of the world to its will. It levelled Kingdoms. It created wars, where there were none, and crushed rebellions when they arose. It was the mightiest power to ever walk the lands of the Enchanted Forest.

And now, it was bound and stuck with the priggish idiot Rumpelstiltskin, and his controlling, word-wrangling deals. 

Technically, they were one in the same - Rumpelstiltskin had assumed that when he slayed the previous ‘Dark One’, that meant he stole the powers. He didn’t realise that it meant the powers were alive and now, they wrapped so snugly around his soul that it was impossible to tell where the Dark One began and Rumpelstiltskin ended. 

He used the powers sparingly.

Unlike previous hosts, this one had seen the cost of magic, and had learned to use the power only when bound by a contract of magic, blood, and a set price. The price was never too low, because he was a sly and fearful devil, and so, the Dark One was left to growl and grumble and Rumpelstiltskin lived and profited from its existence. 

Nothing ever change, year in and year out, and the Dark One was bored.

There were few wars to stop anymore.

The duties they were called on for were trivial. Oh, my wife can’t have a baby. Oh, my farm is too poor. Oh, I want to go to the really nice party but I didn’t get invited. Boring. Trivial. Mortal problems that should have been dealt with by mortal means.

Real, interesting challenges came much more rarely.

When the ogres went to war again, now that was interesting.

There was desperation in the air for the first time in decades and the Dark One was roiling in delight at the scent and taste of it in the world. It was metallic like blood, but carried with it the scent of rot and carrion, and the Dark One purred in pleasure when a message came for its gallant idiot of a host.

For once, Rumpelstiltskin was a surprise.

Normally, he dallied with babies or objects, things which could be traded on again easily, but the Dark One could see no reason but the most base and carnal when Rumpelstiltskin pointed his finger at the Lord’s daughter and claimed her.

The Dark One could tell little of what made women appealing to men, but it had little doubt at all that the little wench in her golden dress was being brought home for the most human of purposes. 

And then, Rumpelstiltskin was surprising again.

He tormented her, at first, locking her in a dungeon, taunting her. Some part of him wanted to scare her, and the Dark One wondered if perhaps Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t even aware of what he really brought her home for.

Well, it had been some time after all, and a man who goes without is a man who loses his mind.

The Dark One chuckled in the hidden recesses of Rumpelstiltskin’s soul. If the foolish man had not realised what he wanted when he claimed her, then it was up to the Dark One to gently direct him. It would be delightful to make the priggish, fussy creature that was its home want and crawl and maybe even take.

It was hardly difficult. The woman seemed to be everywhere in the castle.

Thought it could barely influence his actions, it could nudge his eyes in the right direction, and a young woman scrubbing the floor, her skirt-covered backside in the air, was the very start of it. Rumpelstiltskin’s whole body was suffused with heat and the Dark One chortled with glee at the knowledge that its host was blushing like a schoolboy.

Rumpelstiltskin walked away from her briskly, and pressed against the cool stone of a wall around the corner. He seemed unaware of the delightful new game that he was now the only pawn in.

It became even easier after that.

Once his eyes had been directed once, the Dark One only needed to sit back and wait for them to drift again, and drift they did. The girl wore different clothing, modest but fitted, with corsets and laces and stays. It was but the work of a moment to plant the image of those stays being loosened.

Rumpeltiltskin was stalwart, it had to admit. He merely smiled at her, let her go about her tasks, even though his hands were trembling by his sides. He wouldn’t touch her, and that meant the game couldn’t proceed, but the Dark One was patient. 

Decades, centuries, had taught it the value of being a careful hunter.

The moment, the opportunity, came when the girl tried to move the curtains. 

Sometimes, when distracted, Rumpelstiltskin lowered his guard for a moment, and that was when the Dark One let a coil of magic tug on the ladder, and suddenly, there was warm, soft woman in Rumpelstiltskin’s arms. The Dark One cackled. It was amazed he didn’t swoon as all the blood rushed in a mad wave to his head, and then elsewhere.

Rumpelstiltskin inhaled, as living creatures do, and the Dark One made sure he didn’t miss the scent of the perfume, as he stared at the woman in his arms.

Once more, as usual, he fled as soon as he was able. Steady-footed and calmly, but it was still flight nonetheless, and he retreated to his chamber to breathe deep and press his hands to his thighs, and to ignore the growing want between his legs. He was still a man after all, and she was the first woman he had looked at in generations.

He believed it was entirely him, and to a great extent, it was.

The Dark One all but laughed in delight as the shell that was its home splashed ice-water from a pitcher on his face, and spoke to himself sternly against looking, against remembering the feel of her in his arms, against the wish that he had kissed those surprised lips.

That was the moment when it became even easier. 

He looked now, though there was still a chasteness there. He looked and longed, and the Dark One almost crowed with wonder at the patter of Rumpelstiltskin’s dried-out and hollow husk of a heart. The foolish creature was learning again what it was to care, and for his little strumpet, he was growing softer, more tender, and less alert.

It was delightful and delicious, and the Dark One could feel the confines of its cell weakening by the day with every look that Rumpelstiltskin turned on his dear pet.

It planted imaginings, wicked and wanting. The girl often sat on the table, and now, its host would sit in his chamber, trying not to imagine her laid back on it, her skirts up about her hips, her hair a mass of waves on the surface. She would touch him too, arm, shoulder, hand, and it took little prompting for his mind to incline towards other places.

He dressed as a gentleman now, no doubt to impress his lady, and his mind was soft with affection and warmth. It was almost sickening to the Dark One, had it not also loosened some of the shackles that bound it.

The Dark One flexed and stretched and purred with pleasure as Rumpelstiltskin’s heart expanded with love again. Love was the greatest and most toxic of all magics. It took away all reason and all sense. The Dark One knew that it made people more desperate than anything, even more than starvation or war. After all, love was what had led Rumpelstiltskin to it to begin with.

It couldn’t be more surprised, though, when Rumpelstiltskin set free his girl. 

The man who lived by deals was ready and willing to break one, for the one person he truly cared about, and the look on her face said that she could scarcely believe it herself. That was against all the rules and all the laws, and the Dark One was too surprised to take advantage of this shattering of a chain that bound it.

The girl was gone.

Rumpelstiltskin was alone once more, and the Dark One huddled sullenly in the back of his mind, basking in his grief at the loss. They both knew it was futile to await her return, but Rumpelstiltskin did, haunting the window of the southern tower and watching and waiting.

There were no deals to be made, no people to be taken advantage of, not closed away in the highest tower of the Dark Castle. It was pathetic and human and weak, and the Dark One wanted to break the world apart. The meagre hope, the sentimentality, the humanity was against everything that Rumpelstiltskin had become. 

The Dark One wanted to see him take advantage of the girl, and instead, he fell in love and treated her like an icon, untouchable, pure, and utterly, utterly boring. And now, even that little entertainment was gone, and Rumpelstiltskin would never bring another one, for fear of the same thing happening all over again. 

It would be a return to the mundane, a dull life of deals and word-weaving, and nothing would change for another cycle of lifetimes. 

She returned. 

It took all day and into the evening, but the little strumpet returned, and for a moment, the Dark One was delighted and awed, and then, then, then, it saw the look in her eyes and dread assailed it. There was love there too. Sweet and sickening and cloying and true, and if that fitted to the feelings of Rumpelstiltskin’s heart, then what power it had would be threatened.

If there was a kiss and it was born of true love, then it would dissipate, cast to the winds, gone, no more.

It battered and struggled and fought for purchase as the girl sat down beside Rumpelstiltskin, her hand on his thigh, warm and familiar. The Dark One wrapped tight around his soul, fierce and possessive, and whispered that he was a monster and always would be, a beast, a terrible creature that any sane woman would slay as soon as look at.

It wasn’t enough to stop the kiss. 

It wasn’t enough to stop the change.

The man was becoming a man once more, and the Dark One screamed.

“All curses can be broken,” she said, smiling her innocent’s smile.

The Dark One roared of weakness, of power being gone, of being weak and vulnerable, and that this little witch must be a traitor and liar! Who could love one such as Rumpelstiltskin, it bellowed, rattling its bars and screaming into the silence.

He listened.

He didn’t know he did, but he listened. A coward will always hear threats, even when there are none.

The Dark One screeched with joy as the girl was thrown down, and broken, and Rumpelstiltskin cast her out, truly this time. 

He wrapped himself in the warm cloak of the Dark One’s power, knowing the price, believing he knew what he was throwing away, believing that he was doing the right thing for himself. He never denied, not once, that he was afraid. 

In the depths of his soul, though, there was a tiny spark.

The Dark One curled around it as tightly as it wrapped around him, smothering, stifling, but no matter what it did, the spark remained. It stung the Dark One to touch it, the broken, flickering flame of something that could be more powerful than the Dark One itself. It lingered and crackled and snapped and danced.

The Dark One let it be, hoping the emotion would fade and be gone, and wrapped itself all the more tighter around Rumpelstiltskin’s soul, letting the bitterness and grief fill its senses and coil around every enchantment he wove, every deal he made. 

And yet, even as the curses and magic grew greater and darker and more terrible, that flickering little spark remained, humming softly and warmly, and nothing the Dark One could do would ever quash it.


End file.
